Volume 20, Issue 2 (2006)

Preface to the Special Issue: "Hidden, But Not Forgotten": Hans Christian Andersen's Legacy in the Twentieth Century

Andrea Immel

A green cloth volume of Andersen’s fairy tales in the Grosset & Dunlap Illustrated Junior Library is one of the books I remember most vividly from childhood. And when my first grade teacher discovered I could read aloud “The Ugly Duckling” without any coaching, she exempted me from regular reading instruction. But Andersen probably would not have appeared on a list of my favorite authors. Reading him was a visceral but not especially pleasant experience, because the stories that aroused a ghoulish confusion of terror and pity were the most mesmerizing. The response was triggered not so much by Andersen’s words as by Arthur Syzk’s jewel-toned illustrations in the Grosset & Dunlap edition. The upper left-hand corner of Syzk’s endpapers was dominated by the Snow Queen, whose huge, haunted yet cruel eyes compelled me to stare at its complex design. At the same time, her figure prompted an equally powerful desire to turn away.